My Sunny Birthday in Auckland, New Zealand

Spring has sprung here in Auckland, New Zealand.

Spring… and my birthday.

How weird!

Most years I’m celebrating my birthday in fall, with

• Halloween decorations in the stores
• Leaves turning golden
• Family/friends all around.

This year, I’m celebrating with

• warmth on my face (first time I’ve felt hot in New Zealand)
• the leaves budding out on the trees
• Carrie, as well as Keith and Carol, our family here in Auckland.

Thank-you to Keith and Carol for hosting us here in Auckland.

Thank-you for singing happy birthday to me!

Thank-you for treating us as your family.  We hope we’re not overstaying our visit, and hope to have the opportunity to return your warmth and kindness at our home in the future.

And thank-you to everyone on Facebook, and in emails, and to those of you who sent me a note and/or participated in the charity:water birthday campaign.

Even though we are in Auckland and missing family back in Colorado, I have felt incredibly blessed this year.

Birthday greetings came in from people in 11 countries and in 8 different timezones.

Thank-you, thank-you!

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Why You Should Quit Your Job And Travel The World

Two fantastic posts about why you should quit your job and travel the world.

http://www.ridiculouslyextraordinary.com/21-reasons-you-should-quit-your-day-job/

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/why-you-should-quit-your-job-and-travel-around-the-world/

(Mind you, the how-to isn’t necessarily as easy or as quick, but these are still two great posts on the topic.)

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Floundering Around: Flounder From Ocean To Stomach in 5 Minutes

We went out and caught flounder in Whangaroa Harbor. We did this over two days, and actually caught the flounder in nets, before gutting it, and frying it up in a pan.

Catching flounder and eating it gave me a deep appreciation for the fact that another animal gave it’s life for me to eat. I don’t think I’ve felt that kind of connection in quite the same way before.

Whangaroa Harbor was beautiful, and I can’t think of a better day (well, maybe a bit less rain, but otherwise) to have gone out to catch flounder for the first time.

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Ian’s Garden in Northland, New Zealand

Because we stayed at The J Taitokerau, we got the opportunity to go with Mark (the owner of the J Taitokerau) to visit Ian’s garden.

Ian is a local guy, 81 years old, who has an absolutely magnificent garden.

Here in Northland, they don’t get freezing temperatures, and the summer temps, while hot, are overall pretty mild. This creates the perfect climate for growing nearly everything.

Ian has found a way to grow almost all of it (including plants from places as diverse as Peru and Mexico to places like Russia and Holland) in his garden.

My favorite plant in Ian’s garden is Lemonade. This is a lemon tree with lemons so sweet that when you eat them, it tastes like a nice glass of refreshing and sweet lemonade.

I wish these trees would grow in Colorado.

Here are some video highlights from Ian’s Garden.

When you visit Northland, New Zealand, Carrie and I would definitely recommend you stay at The J. Ian’s Garden is one of those “local” treasures that we never would have known about had we not stayed here.

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The Feeding of the Lambs

Visiting farms and feeding baby sheep in New Zealand.

One of the best parts of staying here at The J Taitokerau is how much we’ve been welcomed by Mark and Nessy Jackson into their home and their lives.

Our new friends here at The J Taitokerau, Mark and Nessy, have many, many friends here in Northland. We’ve been meeting some of Mark and Nessy’s Northland friends in the past week, which we’ve absolutely loved.

New Zealand has 4 million people, and 40 million sheep, so when I told Mark I had never before seen a lamb (before arriving in New Zealand), it came as quite a surprise to him (and to Carrie as well I think).

Mark introduced us to Larry and Fiona.

Larry and Fiona own a farm where they raise all kinds of livestock, but primarily they raise sheep.

Larry and Fiona had an unfortunate experience with someone stealing 5 of their sheep (in the middle of the night – the police are sorting it out), which left several lambs orphaned and needing to be fed.

So Mark took Carrie and me, as well as his daughters Sahba and Alicia, so that we could feed the lambs at the farm of Larry and Fiona.

What an awesome experience, to both see up-close, and feed, little lambs here in Northland, New Zealand.

We also got to go to Marcus’ family’s farm, where Marcus’ brother, dad, and kids all co-manage and run the farm.  On Marcus’ farm, they primarily graze cows, but also have pigs.

Marcus and Dougal also showed us our first up-close whitebaiting experience.

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Cooper Beach/Cable Bay Ice Cream Shop

Cable Bay is quite near to Mangonui, and in fact is basically the beach (Cooper’s beach) where we stopped to watch the sunset the first day we came into the Northern part of Northland.

We connected to the Internet from Cooper’s Beach that first night, using our mobile broadband stick from Telecom to call the Summerfields Country Retreat, where we’ve been staying here in Northland.

Cable Bay is famous for its ice cream shop. You may want to stop here for an ice cream yourself on any summer’s day, or on any warm winter day.

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Tutukaka – Ocean’s Hotel

I’ll save talking much about Tutukaka for a later post, as we plan to return to Tutukaka so that we can dive the Poor Knight’s Islands.  The Poor Knight’s Islands are reportedly one of the top 10 diving spots in the world.

However, we did spend one night in the Ocean’s Hotel in Tutukaka, and made a video to showcase our room, so here is the Ocean’s Hotel in Tutukaka.

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On Arrival in Auckland, New Zealand? Get Arrival magazine.

When you are arriving in Auckland New Zealand, we highly recommend you get a copy of the arrival magazine. It has great articles about what to do, and more importantly, has great coupons and deals for everything from Zorbing in Rotorua to Skydiving in Taupo to skiing on the South Island.

Arrival magazine also includes great discounts on coffee and other tasty treats at Esquires Coffee houses, which are all over New Zealand.

This is why we’re recommending that on Arrival in Auckland, New Zealand, you should get a copy of the arrival magazine.

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Accommodation: Northland, New Zealand for 90 Mile Beach and Cape Reinga

90 Mile Beach and Cape Reinga Accommodation: Northland, New Zealand

Our plan was to visit 90 mile beach and Cape Reinga, stay for 1 night somewhere in Northland, New Zealand, and head back to Auckland to stay with our friends Keith and Carol, then to find short-term jobs somewhere in New Zealand.

Instead, because Mark and Nessy were so great, made us a part of their family, and showed us many of the fun activities of Northland, New Zealand, we stayed one night at The J Taitokerau, went to 90 Mile Beach and Cape Reinga the next day, and came back to the J Taitokerau for a second night. We stayed a third night, a fourth night, and kept staying.

Mark and Nessy have invited us into their family, have introduced us to their friends, and we truly have a home here in the north of New Zealand.

The beds here at The J Taitokerau are some of the most comfortable we’ve stayed in, the rooms are large and each has both a fridge and television as well as coffee and tea making necessities.

Not that you even need that in the room because there is a full kitchen and living room.

The kitchen has more amenities, utensils, and place settings than ours did in Colorado. The fridge is large, there are two ovens, two sinks, and a dishwasher. The common space is shared by just five rooms.

If you are looking for a great accommodation in-between the Bay of Islands and 90 Mile Beach/Cape Reinga (which allows you an easy way to do and see both), we highly recommend you stay at The J Taitokerau.

This has been a fantastic 11 days here in the north of New Zealand, and the start of a lifelong friendship with Mark and Nessy.

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Cape Reinga

Cape Reinga (ree-ayn-guh) is not (as I previously thought) the northern most point in New Zealand.

However, because it’s the most visited north point of New Zealand, most people, at the outset of their bus tours up to the cape believe that Cape Reinga is the northern most point.

Cape Reinga was (and is) of great spiritual significance to the Maori, who believe that their ancestors spirits return to the ocean and make the long journey back to Hawaiki after their death.

From Wikipedia:

Cape Reinga (Te Reinga or Te Rerenga Wairua in Māori) is the northwesternmost tip of the Aupouri Peninsula, at the northern end of the North Island of New Zealand. Cape Reinga is located over 100 km north of the nearest small town of Kaitaia. State Highway 1 extends all the way to the Cape, but until 2010 was unsealed gravel road for the last 19km. Suitable vehicles can also travel much of the way via Ninety Mile Beach and Te Paki stream bed.

(Yes, this means that the bus tour we took drove up a stream from 90 mile beach back to the road so that we could get to Cape Reinga).

We had an incredible guide for our bus tour, who did a great job explaining the history, current status, and plans for the future of both 90 mile beach and Cape Reinga.

The name of the cape comes from the Māori word ‘Reinga’, meaning the ‘Underworld’. Another Māori name is ‘Te Rerenga Wairua’, meaning the leaping-off place of spirits. Both refer to the Māori belief that the cape is the point where the spirits of the dead enter the underworld.

As of January 2007, Cape Reinga is on the tentative list of UNESCO waiting to receive World Heritage Site status. The cape is already a favorite tourist attraction, with over 120,000 visitors a year and around 1,300 cars arriving per day during peak season. Visitor numbers are growing by about 5% a year, and the increase is likely to become even more pronounced [now that] the road to the cape is fully sealed.

We were able to watch the two bodies of water as they crashed into one another.

I never realized that these two bodies of water were so different, or that the Pacific was named that because it really is the calm ocean. I also didn’t know (prior to Keith telling me when we left Auckland) that we’d be able to see the difference between the bodies of water so clearly.

The Māori refer to this as the meeting of the oceans as Te Moana-a-Rehua. This is the place of meeting of ‘the sea of Rehua’ with Te Tai-o-Whitirea, ‘the sea of Whitirea’. Rehua and Whitirea are a male and a female respectively.

It was an incredibly windy day, but the sun was out which made our visit to Cape Reinga quite enjoyable.

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